(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken on 1911-Oct-18 in Paris -- ABU1414)
The mind: a light for discovery and understanding
mind as principle emanation; activity of the human spirit
Editorial introduction
The reality of a human being, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, is thought, not the material body, and yet thought is the one thing about us that no sense can reach. It cannot be seen, heard or touched, but it is what makes the visible world intelligible: it infers the unknown from the known, recognizes love and wisdom as realities, and discovers the hidden laws of nature until a creature weaker than the elephant becomes nature’s master. Aristotle, asking how the mind can receive the form of a thing without becoming it, was circling a neighbouring puzzle, though not the same account of soul and spirit [1]. Reason is called a throne, a lamp, a mirror that still needs the sun; the mind can grow strong and fail with the body while the soul whose ray it is does not change. The same ideal power that explores the sciences also binds hearts together and brings East and West into one room. Following it further leads to the mind as intermediary between soul and body, to the soul as the essential reality of man, and to the high station of learning.
Selected passages
O thou who art steadfast and endowed with understanding! The wise define human reason as the ability to discover the unknown, by means of a sequence of major and minor premises of known facts, leading to the discovery of intelligible universal truths.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá -- AB12758)
The human spirit consists of the rational, or logical, reasoning faculty, which apprehends general ideas and things intelligible and perceptible.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, 1900-Oct-07, to Arthur P Dodge -- AB00460)
Reason is a monarch over the body and the five senses. Reason does not belong to the category of the senses. It is a faculty superior to them. Animals have the five senses but they do not have the reasoning or intellectual faculty as fully developed in man.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to some Arabs, spoken on 1914-Feb-09 -- ABU1093)
For instance, the mind itself is the intellectual reality. It cannot be seen or heard or smelt or tasted or touched. This is the intellectual reality and is not perceptible by the senses.
If you wish to explain it by the senses, it is impossible.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Fugeta et al, spoken on 1920-Jan-01 -- ABU1881)
The intellectual realities are those which are immaterial, as love, wisdom, spirit, character, knowledge, the divine powers; these are the intellectual realities, these are the hidden communications, these are the divine virtues, these are the human perfections, these are the mysteries of nature.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Myron Phelps and Madame Canavarro in Dec. 1902 -- ABU0780)
Infinite sciences have been manifested in the human heart; divine discoveries have been reflected in the mirror of man. Thus, the discovery of the hidden realities is due to human thought; the philosophical sciences are a favour vouchsafed unto man; the wonders of divine arts and crafts are his handiwork.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Commentary on the Fig and the Olive -- AB00447)
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Public address at Stanford University on 1912-Oct-08 -- ABU0008)
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Public address given at the Mills home on 1912-Apr-13 -- ABU0405)
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Public address to International Peace Forum, spoken at Grace Methodist Church on 1912-May-12 -- ABU0016)
All of man's body is body, all are parts of the body, the hands, the head, the feet, etc., but God has chosen and specified the mind of man, and so the power of intellect in the mind of man has made it to be peculiar.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Arthur Agnew et al, spoken on 1907-Apr-13 -- ABU0506)
The soul is the Sanctuary of God; Reason is His Throne.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Julia Grundy spoken around Jan. 1905 -- ABU3609)
Consider what power has brought us together in this meeting - the East and the West. It is evident that this is not through the material power - It is the Ideal power which brings us to-gether. It is the ideal power which establishes a bond between hearts - it's the Ideal power which makes us kinder to each other. It is the Ideal power that brings nations to-gether.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Public address given at Rue St. Didier 30 on 1913-Jan-24 -- ABU0163)
When religion is upheld by science and reason we can believe with assurance and act with conviction, for this rational faculty is the greatest power in the world. … Why treat with indifference such a divine spark? Why ignore a faculty so beneficial, a sun so powerful?
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá -- ABU1902)
O handmaiden of God, Brittingham! Reason and understanding are gifts from the bestowals of God by which man is distinguished from other animals. Would any person of intelligence consent to extinguish this light with the darkness of intoxication? No, by God! His heart would never be content with that. Rather, he would pursue that which increases reason and understanding, not bewilderment and heedlessness and oblivion.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, 1902-Dec-23, to Isabella D Brittingham -- AB00305)
Still, there is no doubt the body and the mind act and react, the one on the other, and the mind can greatly aid and modify even the ills that are purely of a physical and outside origin."
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken ca. Sep. 1911 in London -- ABU2421)
All that we see around us is the work of mind. It is mind in the herb and in the mineral that acts on the human body, and changes its condition.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken in Sep. 1911 in London -- ABU3531)
This is the power of the mind, for the soul is not, of itself, capable of unrolling the mysteries of phenomena; but the mind can accomplish this and therefore it is a power superior to the soul.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá -- ABU0586)
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words spoken at Dreyfus home in Paris, 1911-Nov-10 -- ABU0054)
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Chapter 55, Soul, Spirit, and Mind, 1904 ca. -- AB02018)
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Lawh-i-Dr Forel (Tablet to Dr Forel), 1921-Sep-21, to Auguste Forel -- AB00020)
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Chapter 51, The Appearance of the Spirit and the Mind in Man, 1904-Oct ca. -- AB00722)
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Madaniyyih (The Secret of Divine Civilization), 1875, to The People of Iran -- AB00004)
Spirit is the highest and supreme development of the soul. Soul is the material or outer self--the Mind. is the action of the Soul's powers. The Body is the physical covering or medium in which Mind acts and functions. At death everything but Spirit is destroyed and becomes extinct.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Julia Grundy spoken around Jan. 1905 -- ABU3225)
Further quotations · supplied wording and references
...the rational faculty is a manifestation of the power of the soul. The soul is the mirror of reflection.
LG#1722 (26 Sep. 1943 on behalf of Shoghi Effendi)
For the soul is many things, and all things, both in the things above and the things below down to the limits of all life, and we are each one of us an intelligible universe, making contact with this lower world by the powers of soul below, but with the intelligible world by its power above and the powers of the universe; and we remain with all the rest of our intelligible part above, but by its ultimate fringe we are tied to the world below, giving a kind of outflow from it to what is below, or rather an activity, by which that intelligible part is not itself lessened.
Plotinus, Enn.III.4.3
Since man coincides with the rational soul, when we reason it is really we who reason because rational processes are activities of soul.
Plotinus, Enn.I.1.7
Continue exploring
For thought and discussion
Questions to carry forward
- What do the lamp, light, mirror, and sun metaphors each help us understand about the relation of mind and spirit?
- How does the distinction between sensing and reasoning affect the kinds of questions we can ask about reality?
- What does Aristotle’s account of receiving a form add to the compilation’s descriptions of discovery?
- How can intellectual power contribute to fellowship and justice as well as mastery of natural processes?
- What habits of reading help us compare different accounts of mind, soul, and spirit without assuming that every use of a term is identical?